Method and system of distributing advertisements

ABSTRACT

Method and system of distributing advertisements for storage in a network. The stored advertisements being retrievable for insertion within or other association with services provided to a network subscriber. Identifying characteristics of the advertisement may be used to facilitate the storage thereof and identifying characteristics of the customs may be used to facilitate advertisements associated with services accessed thereby.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to methods and systems of distributingadvertisements for storage in a network wherein the storedadvertisements may be subsequently retrieved for insertion within orother association with services provided to a network subscriber.

2. Background Art

Cable, satellite, data, and other networks are typically provided andsupported by a network provider. One means for the service provider togenerate revenue is to charge advertiser for advertisements distributedthrough the provider's network. Typically, the advertisements areassociated with customer services accessed through the provider'snetwork and the advertisers are charged as a function thereof. Thenetwork providers are faced with the problem of storing theadvertisements for subsequent association with the services.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

One non-limiting aspect of the present invention relates to a method ofdistributing advertisements in a media system having a number of mediadevices. The method may include determining a number of advertisementsto be associated with media services provided through the system,determining one or more identifying characteristics for theadvertisements, and allocating the advertisements for storage on themedia devices as a function of the identifying characteristicsassociated therewith.

Another non-limiting aspect of the present invention relates to a methodof associating advertisements with services provided by a cable systemoperator. The method may include determining a number of advertisementsto be associated with services provided through the cable system,determining one or more identifying characteristics for theadvertisements, storing the advertisements in the system as a functionof the identifying characteristics associated therewith, and retrievingthe stored advertisements for association with services provided by thecable system operator.

Another non-limiting aspect of the present invention relates to a systemof distributing advertisements. The system may include a number of mediadevices in electronic communication for providing services to a numberof customers, and an advertisement tool configured to allocateadvertisements to the number of media devices as a function of one ormore identifying characteristics associated with the advertisements.

Another non-limiting aspect of the present invention relates to a methodof managing advertisements in a media system having a number of mediadevices. The method may include determining a number of advertisementsto be associated with media services provided through the system,distributing the advertisements for storage on the media devices, andpurging one or more of the distributed advertisements from the storagedevices associated therewith.

The above features and advantages, along with other features andadvantages of the present invention, are readily apparent from thefollowing detailed description of the invention when taken in connectionwith the accompanying drawings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The present invention is pointed out with particularity in the appendedclaims. However, other features of the present invention will becomemore apparent and the present invention will be best understood byreferring to the following detailed description and the accompanydrawings in which:

FIG. 1 illustrates a system in accordance with one non-limiting aspectof the present invention; and

FIG. 2 illustrates a flowchart of a method of distributingadvertisements in accordance with one non-limiting aspect of the presentinvention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT(S)

FIG. 1 illustrates a system 10 in accordance with one non-limitingaspect of the present invention. The system 10 may relate to any numberof environments where electronic services associated with a provider aredelivered to a number of subscribers (customers) located in a number ofdifferent regions 14-20. A provider network 24 may be configured todistribute signals associated with the services to the varioussubscriber regions 14-20.

Each subscriber region 14-20 may include any number of customer premisesfeatures and devices (not shown) to support customer access to theservices. For example, if the provider is cable services provider, eachregion 14-20 may include settop boxes, cable modems, computers,gateways, and other features to facilitate customer access to voice,data, and television services offered by the provider.

A number of devices also may be included to support signal transmissionwithin the system 10. The devices may be associated with any number offeatures used to transport signals associated with the subscriberservices. The devices may be configured to support terrestrial andextraterrestrial components and infrastructures, and to communicatesignals over cable lines, telephone lines, and/or satellite or otherwireless and wireline architectures. The devices may cooperate to definevirtual and non-virtual, private and/or public networks, such as theInternet and provider specific private networks.

With respect to the exemplary cable environment, the provider may beassociated with a system (headend) or other feature of a cable serviceprovider to facilitate signal communications between the regions. It mayinclude a memory (not shown), user interface (not shown), and otherfeatures to control, program, and execute the operation thereof. Thedevices and features used to facilitate delivery of the subscribersservices may be associated with any number of electronic devices whichreceive, communicate, or perform signal manipulations.

For example, a portion of the devices may be associated with, a router,hub, switch, gateway, conditional access router (CARs), cable modemterminations system (CMTSs), network provisioning unit (NPUs), sessionboarder controller, media gateway, media gateway controller, signalinggateway, call management server, presence server, SIP routing proxy, SIPproxy/registrar server, PCMM policy server, bandwidth on demand server,streaming server caching proxy, gaming server, CDN, media acquisitionserver, provider server, a unified messaging server, SIP feature server,OSS/BSS, global directory server, digital or personal video recorder(DVRs, PVRs), media terminal adapter (MTA), and/or outlet digitaladapter (ODA).

One or more of the devices may include or be configured to include amemory (not shown) for storing electronic data. The memory may be of arelatively small size to store less data and/or of a relatively largesize to store more data. Data may be transmitted from the provider andother devices for storage on the memories. The stored data may besubsequently retrieved for usage by other devices and featuresassociated with the system.

The devices may be configured to support storing and transmitting thedata. For example, some of the devices may be existing features used bya cable operator to support existing cable services. These devices maybe configured or re-programmed to facilitate storing and transmittingthe data. Likewise, some of the devices may be new devices that may beconfigured prior to or in association with being deployed in the system10. Of course, the present invention contemplates any number of methodsand features to facilitate configuring the devices to store and transmitdata, regardless of when the devices have been deployed for use in thesystem.

The provider and devices may be configured to operate according to orsupport the operation of any number of protocols, applications, andprocedures, including applications such as, but not limited to, linearand non-linear television programming (cable, satellite, broadcast,etc.), Video on Demand (VOD), interactive television (iTV), interactivegaming, pay-per-view (PPV), and protocols such as Hyper Text TransferProtocol (HTTP), Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP), Syslog,Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), Trivial File TransferProtocol (TFTP), Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification(DOCSIS), Domain Name Server (DNS) applications, DOCSIS Settop Gateway(DSG), out-of-band (OOB) messaging, and others.

The foregoing system 10 may be used to facilitate a peer-to-peer (P2P)application where data is transferred from one location to anotherthrough so-called swarming applications. These applications may becharacterized by a complex distributed caching and deliveryarchitecture. The files may be parsed into a large number of chunks, orsub-files, and stored on various memories. A “blue print” may beprovided by the controller or other feature in the system for assemblingthe pieces of data into a coherent, usable file.

As described below in more detail, the system 10 may include anadvertisement tool 28. The advertisement tool 28 may be a logicallyoperating unit, such as a computer or server, having resources forcommunicating signals to the devices located within the various regions14-20 and/or the devices associated with supporting the network 24. Theadvertisement tool 18 may be configured to execute any number operationsand to implement any number of programs or otherwise control operationof the devices in the system 10. The advertisement tool 28 may beassociated with the provider and/or a vendor otherwise associated withthe system 10.

FIG. 2 illustrates a flowchart 30 of a method of distributingadvertisements in accordance with one non-limiting aspect of the presentinvention. As described below in more detail, advertisements and/orpieces of advertisements may be distributed as data to one or more ofthe devices for storage and subsequent retrieval. The distributedadvertisements may be retrieved for association with services providedthrough the system. The advertisement tool 28 may be configured todirect operations associated with implementing one or more of thefeatures associated with the flowchart 30 and the methods of the presentinvention.

Block 32 relates to receiving or otherwise locating advertisements fordistribution in the system 10. The advertisements may be received by theprovider from a vendor or other entity associated with the productionthereof. For example, the vendors may be instructed to include theadvertisements in a file download or other electronic transfer. Ofcourse, any number of other methods may be used to receive theadvertisements, including the provider locating previously receivedadvertisement stored on a local database, on one or more the devices, orother storage features associated with the system 10.

Block 34 relates to determining identifying characteristics for theadvertisements. The identifying characteristics may relate to variousdescriptive features associated with ascertaining the content and/orintended audience of the advertisement. For example, the content may beidentified as a function of a title or genre, a short textualdescription, closed captioned text, and other information included withor assigned to the advertisement. The intended audience may beidentified by a viewing rating (adult, child, R, PG-13, etc.), ademographic value (male, female, professional, etc.), a geographiclocator (city, state, country, etc.), and the like.

The identifying characteristics may be determined by the vendors and/orthe provider. The vendors may be required to associate identifyinginformation with each advertisement prior to providing theadvertisements to the provider. In addition, the provider may includeoperators or other individuals who may view or otherwise analyze theadvertisements and assign the characteristics thereto.

The identifying characteristics may be stored by the provider and/orassociated with metadata. The provider may include a database forlisting the identifying characteristics as a function of an uniqueidentifier associated with each advertisement. The database may beconsulted by a device processing the advertisement to determine theidentifying characteristics associated therewith. Alternatively, themetadata file may travel with the advertisement. The metadata file maybe read by a device processing the advertisement to determine theidentifying characteristics associated therewith.

Block 36 relates to determining viewing preferences for one or more ofthe subscribers. The viewing preferences may be associated with contentand other information related to programs, movies, and other datawatched or otherwise accessed by the subscribers. A database or otherrepository associated with the provider may be responsible for storingthe customer viewing preferences. The relevancy of the viewingpreferences may be assessed based on input from the subscribers and/orthe frequency by which certain subject matter is accessed.

Optionally, the viewing preferences may be established by thesubscribers themselves. A graphically user interface (GUI) or otherfeature may be provided to the subscribers for inputting desired viewingpatterns. The subscribers may access the GUI through a STB menu, VODplatform, webpage, or other portal associated with the provider. Variousviewing preference options may be provided for selection by the user.For example, the GUI may be used to create a preferences file where theuser is able to select a number of viewing preferences, such aspreferences for viewing a particular genre, actor, content, rating, etc.

Block 38 relates to distributing the advertisements for storage on thedevices. An algorithm or other feature may be used to assess the mostefficient storage locations for the advertisements. For example, aparticular geographic area or region may be associated with anadvertisement for a local merchant. The merchant's advertisement may bedistributed for storage in a geographic location associated with themerchant, as it is likely that mainly the subscriber within closeproximity of the merchant will desire viewing of the advertisement.

Optionally, the advertisements may be stored as a function of networktopology information. For example, the network topology (systemtopology) information may indicate nodes on or in association with thenetwork 24 having memory available for storing the advertisements. Thenetwork topology information may be used to indicate portions of thenetwork suitable for communicating with the intended audience of theadvertisement. In more detail, portions of the network 24 may be unable,in some cases, to communicate with other portions of the network suchthat advertisement may allocated to insure the intended audience of eachis within the communication capabilities of the portion of the networkassociated with the storage thereof.

The advertisements may be distributed for storage on an individual basisas function of one or more intended recipients. Particular advertisementmay be stored on devices associated with the one or more intendedrecipients. Likewise, the advertisements may be distributed for storageon an aggregate basis. This may include distributing advertisements tolocations associated with a greater number of intended recipients.

The advertisements may be stored on the devices as logical entitiesand/or individual pieces of data. The logical entities may generally becharacterized as storage of the entire advertisement on a single storagedevice. The advertisements may also be segmented into individual piecesof data such that portions of the advertisement are located on differentstorage devices. An indexing file of other feature may be created fortracking the stored advertisements and facilitating the retrievalthereof, such as through a swarming operation.

Block 40 relates to retrieving the stored advertisements. This mayinclude providing instructions to transport the advertisements from thestorage devices to the customer device accessing the services. Thecustomer device may be configured to insert the advertisements into amedia stream or other feature being accessed by the customer. In somecase, multiple pieces of the advertisement may be transported frommultiple storage devices and assembled by the customer device in orderto associated the complete advertisement with the provide services, suchas if the advertisement is segmented and stored as individual pieces ofdata.

Individual advertisement pieces may be swarmed to the desired customerdevice in a swarming operation. The swarmed data pieces may then bereconstructed by the customer device to complete the advertisement. Thismay include the provider and/or the customer device instructing thestorage devices to communicate the data segments to the customer device.Optionally, the data may be swarmed in the most efficient manner to thecustomer devices, such as over the lowest cost communication medium,shortest transport path, etc.

Block 42 relates to associating the retrieved advertisements withservices provided to the customers. The association may be provided bythe customer device including the advertisement with services accessedby the customer associated therewith, such as according to instructionsincluded with the advertisement and/or instructions provided from theadvertisement tool 28. The advertisement may be included withintelevision programs, video on demand or other pay-per-view services,data access and transport, audio playback and download, and otherservices associated with the provider.

Block 44 relates to purging one or more of the distributedadvertisements from the system, and optionally, storing the purgedadvertisements on a database or other memory associated with theadvertisement tool. The purging generally relates to deleting expiredadvertisement from their storage locations on the devices. This mayinclude deleting one or more pieces of individual advertisements frommultiple storage devices. Optionally, the indexing file may be used tofacilitate the data purging. The deleted files may be permanentlydeleted and/or stored in the database for subsequent use.

The advertisement tool 28 may be configured with a schedule or otherwiseinstructed to emit data deletion signals to the relevant storagedevices. The signals may be emitted as a function of predefined deletionintervals or in response to other triggering events. For example, theadvertisement may be associated with a purchased showing interval uponthe expiration of which the associated advertisements are purged.Optionally, the pieces of data stored on the storage devices may includeself-executing files or metadata for instruction the deletion thereof.Such an arrangement may be used in place of and/or to supplemental thepurging signals emitted from the advertisement tool.

Optionally, the above-described swarming technology may be useddramatically increases the distribution efficiency of the advertisementsby breaking large files into small pieces and co-opting a network ofdevices and their storage to act as servers for distributing the piecesof the advertisements. This may be used to generate a more uniform usageof network distribution paths. This method of distribution isparticularly suited to the delivery of content to any size of group ondemand.

The method of the present invention may be applied to the specificproblem of on-demand distribution of digital content on a managednetwork with DVR's acting as the swarming nodes. This may include a userinterface that allows the user to select a portion of the disk space ontheir DVR to be used as a swarming node under management of the serviceprovider. This may also include management software resident on a serverin the network that distributes content and files to the swarming nodesbased on geography, demographics, popularity, or other criteria. Themanagement system may be used to collect information on the usage ofcontent and the disk space offered to the network by individual users,such as to be used in managing the distribution of the content andpotentially award benefits to the users based on the amount of storagespace they offer to the network.

The present invention allows a service provider to optimally manage thedistribution of ad content or other stored content by sub-swarms ofnodes to serve the ads based on geography, demographics, the popularityof the ads or other criteria. It also provides the means for users tooffer an amount of disk space to the network for this purpose inexchange for consideration from the service provider. The serviceprovider benefits from consumers offering storage space to the swarmingdistribution network and from usage data generated by users. The serviceprovider can also use the system to deliver software and other files.The advertisers benefit from the ability to deliver ads to very targetedsub-segments of television viewers. The users benefit by receiving adsmore suited to their interests as well as possible consideration fromthe network provider for participating in the swarming network.

As required, detailed embodiments of the present invention are disclosedherein; however, it is to be understood that the disclosed embodimentsare merely exemplary of the invention that may be embodied in variousand alternative forms. The figures are not necessarily to scale, somefeatures may be exaggerated or minimized to show details of particularcomponents. Therefore, specific structural and functional detailsdisclosed herein are not to be interpreted as limiting, but merely as arepresentative basis for the claims and/or as a representative basis forteaching one skilled in the art to variously employ the presentinvention.

While embodiments of the invention have been illustrated and described,it is not intended that these embodiments illustrate and describe allpossible forms of the invention. Rather, the words used in thespecification are words of description rather than limitation, and it isunderstood that various changes may be made without departing from thespirit and scope of the invention.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method of managing advertisements in a mediasystem used to provide services to a number of subscriber media devices,the subscriber media devices being stationed at subscriber locations tofacilitate access to the services, the method comprising: requesting asubscriber associated with each media device to identify an amount ofmemory to be made available on the associated media device for storingadvertisements; distributing portions of a number of advertisements forstorage on the media devices according to the identified amount ofavailable memory, wherein each portion contains a fraction of an entireadvertisement and must be combined with the other portions in order toshow the entire advertisement; distributing the portions such that atleast two portions of the entire advertisement is stored on at least twodifferent media devices; and purging one or more of the portions of theentire advertisement from the media devices in response to thesubscriber requesting a reduction in the amount of memory to be madeavailable for storing advertisements including issuing purginginstructions to each of the media devices storing portions of the entireadvertisements.
 2. The method of claim 1 further comprising transmittingpurging signals to the media devices for instructing deletion of theadvertisements.
 3. The method of claim 1 further comprising includingdata with one or more of the advertisements for directing the purgingthereof.
 4. The method of claim 1 further comprising instigating purgingof the one or more portions of the advertisements according to apredefined schedule.
 5. The method of claim 1 further comprising, priorto distributing the at least two portions of each advertisement,embedding information within a first one of the at least two portions tofacilitate retrieving at least a second of one of the at least twoportions, the information identifying media devices for storing eachportion of each advertisement prior to each portion actually beingstored at the media devices.